


Trust the Process

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, KNBxNBA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 14:24:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14875451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: Shuuzou's not sure if he does or not.(sixers!shuu)





	Trust the Process

**Author's Note:**

> val: knb x nba but the actual nba  
> me: [screams for 12 hours]
> 
> based on 15-16, when yes, the sixers really were that bad.

The first thing Shuuzou does as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers is smile and shake hands with the GM and the coach, put on the jersey and smile for the flashbulbs. The second, after he’s been ushered back down, is to nod and smile when the GM says a few words that are not promising.

“Welcome, Shuuzou. We’re going to be building a strong team up around you in the next few years, so trust the process.”

Shuuzou’s heard, of course, about The Process, about last year’s always-injured draft pick and two straight years of tanking. How now last year’s pick is healthy and he’s here and the summer’s ahead of the Sixers with plenty of cap room, and how this sounds suspiciously like a promise of another few years of this shit. The Cavs got away with it, but that’s because they drafted one of the best players in the world first overall and had one of the others sign with them. Shuuzou’s top-five, but he’s under no illusion that he’s that good, or that the draft class itself is very good. Truthfully, he wasn’t expecting to go this high, and in this context he’s not quite sure he should take it as a compliment.

* * *

Shuuzou goes into training camp with an open mind and some optimism. So their roster looks like shit; more than half of the teams in the conference are going to make the playoffs. And he has a better chance of playing more NBA minutes, securing a better future and bigger payday for himself.

Intra-squad matches aren’t bad. The guys are nice; some of the vets (all of five or six years older than Shuuzou) offer to show him around Philly, do all the tourist shit he can subject his family to when they visit and show him all the good places to grab a drink or just get shitty fast food (or late night grease). Shuuzou can keep up with the training; he can keep up with his teammates.

He starts the first preseason game against Washington, starting guard out of University of Southern California, number nine, and holy shit, that sounds good. It feels good, too, like gears clicking into place the way they always do in basketball. It’s like middle school, with his roots half-grown up and tearing up the court, running the plays the first time an opponent really threw its back into turning the tables on Teikou. Stepping on the court again in high school, Kiyoshi and his father piercing his resolve to not go back, and feeling like if everything wasn’t right then, it would be soon. Starting three games in a row his first year of college, among a set of guys who had made All-American teams since they were seven years old. People cheering for him in the summer league.

It’s not a real game but it feels pretty fucking incredible anyway, dribbling up and down the court  and making his shots, passing and rebounding and being passed to. Shuuzou’s aware no one’s at full strength and the win means absolutely nothing, but it feels like a statement. They can fast-forward the process a little bit; everyone loves a Cinderella story.

The basketball turns into a pumpkin the very next game. Shuuzou’s not playing but most of the veterans are, and so are the Cavs. Yes, the Cavs are Good in a way the Sixers aren’t, fresh off a conference championship, still a superteam, Aomine grinning from the middle of them (Aomine who’s an established veteran when Shuuzou’s a rookie—it’s still weird; he still seems just like a kid). They have a consistent roster that knows how to win, and the Sixers don’t. But it’s also preseason, and no reason why they should be losing by a 30-plus point margin.

“Better luck next time,” Aomine says.

Shuuzou wants to tell him to mind who he’s talking to, but it seems suddenly out of place.

* * *

The Sixers don’t win a game until December. The first couple of weeks, they come close but it doesn’t feel like this. The next while after that it feels like they can’t do anything right, like there’s a weight, a doubt holding Shuuzou back and preventing him from taking a shot, passing it out when the shot clock’s about to expire. He gets benched for two games, but his replacements don’t do better; it’s like there’s a contagious case of the yips amplifying inside of the locker room. He and his teammates don’t look at each other, afraid it will make it worse. Conversation is stilted, shoving in good faith under the basket threatens to crack the tension the wrong way and escalate it into a real fight. The coaching staff looks in over its collective head, and Shuuzou can’t feel sorry for any of them. They ought to know how to manage a bunch of finicky pro athletes by now.

Maybe not managing is part of the process. Perhaps in all its unwritten glory, there is a section that involves players teaching self-management, about natural leaders evolving in the locker room, the kind of thing that gives executives and TV color commentators old-fashioned-sports-glory boners. Shuuzou doesn’t resent that it’s falling across his shoulders again, the familiar weight of so-called leadership, even though it’s a breed he’s never handled before.

It’s the same basic shape, the same under the covers. And honestly, he’d take dealing with a group of decent guys with less skill over Haizaki and Murasakibara together any day. And since their play direction is so very minimal, Shuuzou doesn’t have much of a problem running plays, even if it takes him a while to find the right ones to execute.

They get to go to LA, but not until January; the Lakers come to play in Philly first. It’s still enough of a reminder of home, the family Shuuzou’s making all this money for but never sees, the place he’d lived for seven fucking years and left so abruptly.

The lakers are pretty bad, but they’ve won two games to the Sixers’ none, an infinite percentage and, from here, an uncrossable chasm, the other side of one of the Great Lakes.

Akashi is unsympathetic, but that’s to be expected; it’s like a dose of normalcy to this world of losing.

“I don’t like it,” Shuuzou says, and Akashi’s lips curl into a smile like oil in a puddle.

“I don’t, either,” says Akashi. “But here we are.”

Shuuzou’s not sure how much he can or should say to Akashi; there’s always the feeling that Akashi already knows what he’s feeling, that his eyes have periscopes that can see straight into Shuuzou’s brain. He shouldn’t be telling Akashi his insecurities; Akashi has his own shit. And he’s Akashi; he’s younger and he still at least pretends to respect Shuuzou. Saying he doesn’t know how to lose is not something he should say out loud to someone like this.

“How’s your dad?” Shuuzou settles on.

Akashi inclines his head. “We still aren’t talking much. I’m making my own money; he’s making his. He’ll come around or he won’t.”

Shuuzou bites the inside of his cheek. He shouldn’t have asked, probably; it might come off as insensitive from someone who’s as close as he is to his own family. Perhaps Akashi knows how he meant it. Or it didn’t occur to him. Shuuzou stirs the sugar in his coffee.

“I want to win.”

“So do I,” says Akashi.

* * *

The Sixers win. They beat the only other team close to their level of shittiness, but it’s not a slapfight or a concession. The Lakers fight hard, but Akashi can only will them so far and only in the minutes he plays. His roster is far more hostile, full of players who are selfish and unpredictable and refuse to submit to Akashi.

As they should. It’s about damn time the kid got used to people who don’t buy in, and it's kind of amusing to watch him frown as if his teammates are disobedient shogi tiles.

The game itself is fun, too. Shuuzou gets to go one-on-one against Akashi and come out pretty well on the other side. They fucking win. The plays go through; Shuuzou’s teammates follow his lead and he follows theirs and they’re playing something like a cohesive unit, pressing their advantages. And they fucking win.

Maybe the process is right on schedule. Who the fuck knows? For the moment, Shuuzou trusts it.


End file.
